Lorraine Mbulawa, 19, escaped jail after judge Mr Justice Keith accepted the girl had such strong beliefs in witchcraft and evil that she was acting upon what she was told to do by spirits.
2. Anti-vaxxers forcefully remove peaceful protester from their convention – Ken Reibel and Jamie Bernstein were both ejected from the anti-vaccine “Autism One” conference by 3 security guards and 4 police officers. Their crime: being recognized as dissenters of the movement’s ideology. This speaks volumes about the intellectual integrity of their movement. If anti-vaxxers attended TAM or NECSS, no one would kick them out unless they were actually disrupting the conference.
3. Catholic adoption agency shuts down rather than let gays adopt – Finally, a charity that has its priorities in place. Better a child grow up in an institution than risk that child being infected by evil, gay cooties. Good thinking there, Catholic Charities of Rockford! You guys are a class act all the way!
I just got a distressing comment on an old piece I did about bogus psychics claiming to be able to communicate with the ghost of Michael Jackson beyond the grave. The comment distressed me so much I decided to re-post it along with my reply in a separate piece here.
First the comment:
Hi..i am 15 and i am sort of sensitive. I have predicted things before they happen in my dreams before. I had a dream when i was younger that my mom had to go to the hospital becausse something happened with her leg. I told my dad about it the next morning and sure enough i got a call from her. My loved ones have also came to me in my dreams. I was just wondering if you could contact my oma (grandma) for me. She died when i was very young and i miss her so much. I dont understand why she had to die when i was that young. I just need to know if shes stilla round me. Also can you ask her if i will ever see spirits like you???
-shannon : )
This perhaps summarizes better than I could ever articulate the harm caused by these alleged psychics, these grief-rapists, who prey on people at their most vulnerable. I was reminded of that great Twilight Zone episode, Nick of Time, where William Shatner plays a man who becomes almost hopelessly obsessed with a penny fortune-telling machine that appears to really foretell the future. The obsession almost takes over his life:
Here was my responnse to Shannon:
Shannon, it is not my intent to sound harsh or mean but unfortunately everyone has had that dream. On a long enough time line, everyone eventually has an occasional dream that seems to correspond to an event that happens soon after. There’s nothing paranormal about.
Unfortunately, as difficult as it must be to accept, your grandmother is gone. No one…NO ONE can communicate with her and if someone tells you they can, they are either lying to you or are lying to themselves.
You don’t need some charlatan to tell you what you want to hear, that your grandmother is up in heaven somewhere looking down on you and loves you very much. Without any magical powers, I can say with strong confidence that your grandmother loved you. And much as we might want to believe that our loved ones are not really gone and are out there somewhere because we’re scared about the finality of death, there is a beauty in death. If existence lasted forever it would lack any real value. So while I cannot say for certain that death is the end, I think the best way to live is under the assumption that this is all we get and to live this life to the fullest and with a view towards helping to leave the world better than when we found it.
You don’t need your grandmother to live a happy, healthy, productive, and wonderful life. And you certainly don’t need some crook to charge you for the service of lying to you no matter how pleasant those lies are. My advice is that you move on and live the best life you can while taking the time to appreciate your loved ones in the here and now.
Okay, I debated whether or not to talk about the George Lucas rumor going around because right now its just unsubstantiated gossip, I’m only hearing the story second-hand, and because I respect George Lucas a lot. The man was involved in some major capacity in at least 5 movies in my list of top 30 films of all time, including my the top 2 films on that list. And no other filmmaker has been a bigger influence on me. But it occurred to me that had this been a celebrity I didn’t care about, I would write about it, so I can’t play favorites.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s the story. Seth Rogen claims that he met with both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and that during that meeting, Lucas revealed that he was a big believer in the alleged Mayan prophecy that the world would end in 2012.
“George Lucas sits down and seriously proceeds to talk for around 25 minutes about how he thinks the world is gonna end in the year 2012, like, for real. He thinks it.“He’s going on about the tectonic plates and all the time Spielberg is, like, rolling his eyes, like, ’My nerdy friend won’t shut up, I’m sorry…’
“I first thought he (Lucas) was joking… and then I totally realized he was serious and then I started thinking, ’If you’re George Lucas and you actually think the world is gonna end in a year, there’s no way you haven’t built a spaceship for yourself… So I asked him… ’Can I have a seat on it?’
“He claimed he didn’t have a spaceship, but there’s no doubt there’s a Millennium Falcon in a garage somewhere with a pilot just waiting to go… It’s gonna be him and Steven Spielberg and I’ll be blown up like the rest of us.”
And now everyone’s talking about it…which I guess is a good thing because the overwhelming public sentiment seems to be that no intelligent person should really take this 2012 doomsday thing seriously and perhaps a little mockery will change Lucas’ mind on the thing if this story is legitimate in the first place.
Now it’s not that I seriously think Rogen would make up a story like this out of thin air to get media attention now that he’s got a movie out in theaters. I think he comes off as a really genuine guy and seems like he’s almost certainly a big fan of Lucas’.
So I don’t think it’s made up. But it’s possible that Lucas and maybe Spielberg were having fun with him and Rogen didn’t pick up on it. Of course it’s also possible George Lucas really, truly believes the world will end in 2012. Though his actions over the past few years don’t seem to suggest that is the case. Then again, I find most believers in these sorts of impending doomsday ideas tend to live lives inconsistent with that belief just like religious people who believe death will bring them to paradise seem to go as out of their way to avoid death as any atheist. So it’s possible there’s a compartmentalization aspect to this where he’s kind of obsessed with reading books on the subject and is buying into some of it without really acting in a way that’s congruent with that belief.
I don’t want to get into absurdity of these beliefs now. That’s been done to death. Contrary to what we hear from the delusional, in most ways the world is actually getting better. To quote Nerdfighter Hank Green:
In the last 100 years the human lifespan has increased by over 35 years. 100 years ago the average lifespan was only 45 years. Now it’s almost 80. And that number is increasing every year. If it keeps increasing at that same rate, the average lifespan of a child born in 2008 will be 98 years old.
Teen pregnancy, smoke, and drug use have all decreased significantly since the 1990s.
Rates of cancer have decreased steadily in the U.S. for 20 years and it’s not just because people aren’t smoking as much, though that’s certainly part of it. It’s also because new screening techniques that can detect pre-cancerous lesions in the colon and also because of the HPV vaccine which prevents the virus that causes cervical cancer.
Small Pox once killed millions of people per year; now it has been completely eradicated. It literally does not exist anymore.
Since 1990, global poverty rates have decreased by more than 30%. And they’re on-track to have decreas 40% by 2015.
Divorce rates are much lower than people assume, and have consistently dropped since the 1970’s in America. Only 20% of people who got married in the 1980s got divorced.
Violent crime rates dropped 5% between 2007 and 2008. And violent crime rates have been dropping consistently every year since 1993
The Red Cross collects 15 million blood donations per year. No one is compensated for those donations, except with cookies and juice. People just like helping other people.
In 1970 there were only 400 breeding pairs of Bald Eagles left in America, but the Endangered Species t effectively saved the species. There are now more than 10,000 breeding pairs. During the same time Whooping Cranes returned from a much more serious 50 birds total in the entire world. There are now over 500.
So in guess you were thinking that boy was our last hope, Yoda was right. There is another.
1. Christianity loses majority in England – For the first time, an annual British Social Attitudes survey suggests Christianity does not represent the majority of British citizens, with only 42% self-identifying as Christians while 51% now saying they have no religion. America is making progress in that area as well bu still has ways to go, as 26% of Millennials saying they’re religiously unaffiliated compared with 20% of GenXers and 14% of Baby Boomers.
3. I usually don’t like seeing children get spanked but PZ does it so well – Occasionally, PZ Myers posts a particularly egregious creationist email he gets and has his fun dissecting and demolishing its points. This time, it was an email from a creationist claiming to be a 12-year-old boy. Now normally I would say leave the kid alone as it seems overly cruel to publicly ridicule someone so young. But to the kid’s credit (if we take his age at face value), it’s fairly well written for a 12-year-old (minus some glaring typos) and it’s actually precisely the same arguments we hear from adult creationists all the time, so I can’t really fault PZ for using this email as chance to educate.
1. Catholic Church tells hospital they should have let patient die – A pregnant woman who was almost certainly going to die came into St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center. The doctors knew that in order to save the woman’s life, they’d have to abort the fetus. And it worked. But the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix didn’t like that decision and so they essentially excommunicated the hospital from any Catholic affiliation. They actually punished a hospital for putting patient life first. Though I guess it’s not really a punishment since now the hospital administration can continue to act ethically without having to give the misguided and ignorant opinions of Catholic officials another thought.
And speaking of the Catholic Church…
2. WikiLeaks uncovers another possible Vatican scandal – The Vatican originally agreed in writing to take up observer status with the International Task Force on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research, referred to as the ITF. Then, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable from WikiLeaks, they reneged on the agreement amid controversy over the role of the war-time pope.
She added that the deal “had fallen apart completely … due to Vatican back-pedaling,” according to the cable, which was published by the newspaper.
The message says this decision “may have been taken by the Vatican’s relatively inexperienced new deputy foreign minister (Ettore Balestrero), and if so, would not be the first time he has complicated Vatican foreign relations.”
However, it added: “The Vatican may also be pulling back due to concerns about ITF pressure to declassify records from the WWII-era pontificate of Pope Pius XII.
Yup, you can always count on the Vatican…for a good scandal.
3. Gallop poll suggests America is gradually moving towards accepting evolution – When it comes to accepting evolution, America is somewhat of an embarrassment to the rest of the world. In recent years, polls have shown that up to 47% of Americans are Young Earth Creationists. But a new poll suggests that number is now only 40%. Still not anything remotely to be proud of but it suggests that maybe our efforts to take on the creationists may be yielding positive results.
4. Sanjay Gupta embarrassingly uncritical of John of God – Unfortunately, CNN hasn’t put up the video yet of this segment, but I’ve linked to their blog about it. For those who don’t know, John of God is a Brazilian con artist posing as a faith healer. He does nothing we haven’t seen other “faith healers” who have been exposed as frauds have done, and yet Sanjay Gupta and his guests still found him to be “mysterious.” In fact, given how many times they reminded the audience during this segment that the universe is mysterious and there are still things we don’t know, Gupta made it clear that journalistic and scientific integrity was not very high on his list of priorities. I intend to write to CNN to express my outrage over the segment and demand that they fire Sanjay Gupta for his anti-intellectual nonsense. I hope others will join me in this campaign.
Over the last few days, there have been a number of news stories that have gotten my attention that seem to be connected. Now I’m not going to tell you what the connection is. I’ll let you see if you can figure it out.
2. Oregon faith-healing parents trying to get their kid back while facing criminal charges for first-degree criminal mistreatment after not seeking medical treatment for their 7-month-old daughter who developed a LARGE growth over her left eye. The father was previously married to another woman but she died of breast cancer four years ago after not seeking or receiving any medical treatment for the condition. I guess fool him once, shame on him; fool him twice, even greater shame on him for not learning a god-damned thing!
1. Church sued because world didn’t end – Two members of Australia’s Agape Ministries donated $1.4 million under the belief that doomsday was coming. But when the doomsday came and went without incident, they demanded their money back since it their generous gift was predicated on the church’s lies of impending doom.
2. Muslim Cleric calls for death to ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day’ cartoonist – Although we must take Anwar al-Awlaki‘s threat seriously, I suspect nothing will happen to Molly Norris, the subject of his outrage. Even he’s got to realize that the golden age of the West folding under the threats of Islamofascism are over. That was the indeed the whole point of Everybody Draw Mohammed Day in the first place. They can’t get all of us and there’s safety in numbers. Further, like a quicksand, every recent attempt by Muslim fundamentalists to quash “blasphemy” has only causes them to sink even faster. These scare tactics no longer work and only end up blowing up in their own faces (no pun intended, Muslim suicide bombers) in the Internet Age.
Dawn, a staunch 2012 believer, makes her adopted clan — a family whose daughter is a golf prodigy — train for the end of the world. “Apocalypse training” apparently means wearing matching camo shirts and making your dog don a flotation vest. Amazing television.
1. Happy Blasphemy Month! – I didn’t realize July was Blasphemy Month until i was informed by my newest Facebook friend, Greta Valenti, aka Masturbating Catholic, aka Fuji Minx. Greta (who I may vow to make my future wife) has gotten Blasphemy Month off early with a certain music video that has been banned from YouTube. Fortunately, the internet not only never forgets but attempts to censor YouTube videos is the best publicity. In fact, I may have never heard of Greta if her video hadn’t pissed off the Catholics who constantly need other things to be outraged against to keep them from being outraged at their own child abuse scandals. For those who wish to watch the video, it can be found in the link above.
2. Car crash blamed on vampire – You know, it’s these sorts of negative stigmas perpetuated by Hollywood that are keeping vampire Americans down. Not every bad thing that happens is because of vampires. Sometimes its just a chupacabra or the creature from the black lagoon.
3. Supreme Court rejects Vatican immunity – The Vatican can no longer escape prosecution using the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976. Now all we have to do is invoke RICO.
1. Another kid excluded from Catholic school due to lesbian parents – This is the second time in just the last few months that a Catholic school has decided that children of lesbian parents don’t deserve an education. This time it’s in Massachusetts. It’s just a shame the kid’s parents weren’t child rapists. Cause otherwise he’d get right in.
2. News anchor duped by YouTube video of people running on water – He says it couldn’t be a visual trick because he watched it in slow-mo (cause you can’t trick in slow-mo, right?) and his explanation is centrifugal force (even though that involves rotation). The actual explanation is that this video is a viral ad for Hi-Tec Sports, an athletic shoemaker.
3. Central African Republic courts overwhelmed by witch trials – Many alleged witches are facing criminal punishment for hexing their enemies or assuming the shape of animals. I hate when that happens. About 40% of all cases here are over witchcraft. And the rights of the accused are violated regularly in witchcraft prosecutions, because the charge carries enormous pressure to confess. And the alternative to these prosecutions is mob justice from people convinced witches are hexing people with impunity. I’m so glad we live in the 17th century.
4. Priest tries exorcism on handicapped girl – The girl was both physically and mentally disabled. The priest spoke in gibberish and then started demanding the girl to speak:
“The girl would not have even been able to comprehend, let alone follow instructions. It was very undignified for the young lady and she was just crying, howling at the altar.”
Suffice it to say, it didn’t work. The church’s excuse for this unseemly affair is that the priest was a foreigner. So I guess that means they’d have let him get away with virgin sacrifices too.
6. Polish pop singer faces 2-years in prison for blasphemy – In a television interview last year, 26-year-old Dorota Rabczewska, known as “Doda”, said she found it far easier to believe in dinosaurs than the Bible; “it is hard to believe in something written by people who drank too much wine and smoked herbal cigarettes.” And for that, this pop star and Mensa member may go to jail for 2 years because she hurt the feelings of Catholics. Under Poland’s blasphemy law, simply offending someone’s religious sensibilities can earn you hefty fines and even imprisonment. And while I hate to invoke Godwin’s Law, it needs to be said. And to think I thought Poland got rid of the Nazis.
Two studies in the April 27th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, offer rare glimpses into the ways that chimpanzees deal with the deaths of those closest to them. In one case, researchers describe the final hours and moment of death of an older female chimp living in a small group at a UK safari park as captured on video. In the other, researchers observed as two chimpanzee mothers in the wild carried their infants’ mummified remains for a period of weeks after they were lost to a respiratory epidemic.
2. Anti-vaxxers forcefully remove peaceful protester from their convention – Ken Reibel and Jamie Bernstein were both ejected from the anti-vaccine “Autism One” conference by 3 security guards and 4 police officers. Their crime: being recognized as dissenters of the movement’s ideology. This speaks volumes about the intellectual integrity of their movement. If anti-vaxxers attended TAM or NECSS, no one would kick them out unless they were actually disrupting the conference.
3. Catholic adoption agency shuts down rather than let gays adopt – Finally, a charity that has its priorities in place. Better a child grow up in an institution than risk that child being infected by evil, gay cooties. Good thinking there, Catholic Charities of Rockford! You guys are a class act all the way!
Posted by Michael Rosch 
Skepacabra 